We often see this defect of incompleteness in a child, which increases in youth.

All about the house, everywhere, there are half-finished things.
It is true that children often become tired of things which they begin with enthusiasm; but there is a great difference in children about finishing what they undertake.

A boy, for instance, will start out in the morning with great enthusiasm to dig his garden over; but, after a few minutes, his enthusiasm has evaporated, and he wants to go fishing.
He soon becomes tired of this, and thinks he will make a boat.

No sooner does he get a saw and knife and a few pieces of board about him than he makes up his mind that really what he wanted to do, after all, was to play ball, and this, in turn, must give way to something else.
One watch, set right, will do to set many by; but, on the other hand, one that goes wrong may be the means of misleading a whole neighborhood.
The same may be said of the example we individually set to those around us.
"Whatever I have tried to do in life," said Dickens, "I have tried with all my heart to do well.

What I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely." It is no disgrace to be a shoemaker, but it is a disgrace for a shoemaker to make bad shoes.
A traveler, recently returned from Jerusalem, found, in conversation with Humboldt, that the latter was as conversant with the streets and houses of Jerusalem as he was himself.